The Boring Introduction and Mandatory Screed Against Medium to Prove that I am Not Tap-dancing for Those Fucks

So, I’ll start this post like I start all posts by talking about how Medium is deeply flawed and I am frustrated that this free site won’t give me what I want.

Now, if I could use HTML tags, I would strikethrough the above paragraph for comic effect. On the Internet, strikethrough is comedy gold. Its deprecation in the Medium editor is a sign that the Medium stooges just hate the funny.

Just remember, you had to endure both of the above paragraphs because Medium is comedically castrating its writers. You should blame Medium, not me, for your pain.

Well, as much as Medium sucks, Reddit sucks worse. Reddit is a good, old-fashioned, Internet cesspool. If you are too young to have watched the demise of Fark and Digg, then maybe you have not seen this before. What happened to Reddit is referred to by Internet weathermen as a “tsunami of stupid”. I can explain the tsunami of stupid phenomenon to you, but that would mean that you would have to show some interest in that topic, and since on Medium nobody shows any interest in anything, that’s not going to happen. So the long boring tsunami of stupid post is not going to happen, and you can give yourselves credit for dodging that bullet.

There are lots of great things on Reddit. I love /r/bees and /r/beekeeping, but those are serious Reddits. The way you judge an Internet site is by its serendipitous entertainment value, and when it comes to serendipitous entertainment value, the /r/ANormalDayInRussia is one of the best sites around.

The Best Reddit

I know next to nothing about Russia. I traveled to Moscow and St. Petersburg in 1981 and all I can tell you is that the ice cream on the street in Moscow was really good. Maybe the best ice cream I’ve ever had. I’ve asked a lot of Russians about the ice cream and never been given a good answer. One person said, “it wasn’t pasteurized,” which may explain the goodness. While in Russia I also watched a bear in the Moscow Circus do a handstand on a bongo board on top of a platform balanced on a stick. I wouldn’t believe that such thing could happen if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes.

That’s about all I know. Other than the bear and the ice cream, my knowledge of Russia comes from reading blogs by people like Deadprogrammer and other Russian ex-patriots whom I really enjoy reading. So, the truth is that I don’t know how Russian /r/ANormalDayInRussia is, and the possibility exists that I may be enjoying the Russian equivalent of redneck jokes. Redneck jokes are not funny. Neither is /r/ANormalDayinAmerica . Maybe Russians don’t enjoy A Normal Day in Russia. I’ll let the Russians decide if I’m being chauvinist or not.

Here are some of the tropes on /r/ANormalDayInRussia that make it so great.

Russians Handle Misery Well

“Any idiot can face a crisis — it’s day to day living that wears you out.”
-Anton Chekhov

Russians, While Being at the Forefront of the Digital Age, Remain Masters of the Mechanical Age

Russian’s Have a Better Pool of Cultural Weirdness to Mock

The video below is, apparently, the Russian “Rick Roll”. You have to admit that, as great as “Never Gonna Give You Up” is, this is better. You’ll notice that the first two comments on the Rick Astley video are in Russian. They know they have us beat.

Let’s compare. Which do you think is more interesting? This:

Or this:

I think we lose, and that Tom Jones is the best we have.

Russians Are Still OK With Drunk Jokes

Back when Irish-Americans were funny, we used to be able to make jokes about drink. Somewhere, somehow, we got so self-serious that you’d think we were all pioneers. Make a drunk Irish joke on a blog today and expect a deluge of self-righteous armchair historians lecturing you about English oppression and victimization of Irish immigrants in the 1800s. If the Russians have such school-marms about, they don’t weigh in on Reddit.

Russians Find Humor in Cold

The cold sucks, right? No! On /r/ANormalDayInRussia cold and winter are a constant source of funny!

There Is the Adidas Trope

The Adidas track suit is a trope that seems like it would get old, but somehow, someway, there is a new picture every couple of weeks that breathes life into this old saw and makes me want to go buy one.

Putin Is More Fun to Mock Than Any Other World Leader

Putin is fun to mock because he is so frighteningly effective. He really did annex Crimea, invade Ukraine, and have an opposition leader executed by his Chechen cronies, so making fun of Putin has comedic heft. It’s why Pussy Riot is more punk than your favorite punk band. Nothing gives an edge to satire quite like the possibility that the satirist will be shot or jailed.

Russians Laugh At Their Decaying Infrastructure

We could learn from this. As America’s infrastructure continues its decline towards “failed state” status, we should take a cue from the Russians and begin to find the dark humor in living in the land of broken toys.

Two GREAT Medium posts on the subject.